Someone Greater Than Solomon–and Your Smartphone–Is Here

Your head is bowed. Your eyes are fixated. Wild horses couldn’t tear you away. Such is the devotion you have to what is on the screen before you. You can scarcely separate yourself from your phone for more than a few minutes at a time.

It can be a startling revelation to contrast in a Christian’s life the attention paid to a smartphone, and that which is shown to Jesus.

Jesus rebuked His generation because they wanted something bigger and more impressive–a sign–than the miracles and healing and preaching and teaching and relationship that He Himself had to offer. Ultimately, the desire for a sign was a lack of faith that Jesus Himself was enough. In response, Jesus said to them:

“The Queen of the South will rise up with the men of this generation at the judgment and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold, something greater than Solomon is here” (Luke 11:31).

Did you see that? When it is time for the world to be judged, the heathen Queen of Sheba will heap condemnation on a generation that had access to Jesus Christ, but somehow failed to see that something– Someone–greater than Solomon’s splendor and wisdom–was in their midst.

Reading this Scripture, I’m seized with deep conviction. Something great and wonderful is in my midst. Have I grasped it? Even what I do comprehend eludes me, for I’m easily entangled again in the ordinary hum-drum of daily life, including the “tyranny of the urgent” my cell phone inflicts.

I don’t want to be part of the generation that is chastised for failing to grasp how marvelous and thrilling and holy Jesus is! Nor do I want to fall into self-condemnation for my tendency toward laziness and distractions. I want to commit to the daily discipline of getting in His word, and ask Him to reveal Himself.

How will you respond to the “Something greater than Solomon” that is in your midst”?

About Emily Tomko

Emily Tomko's radical encounter with the Lord while at a nightclub changed her life forever and inspired her first novel, College Bound: A Pursuit of Freedom. She is the author of seven books, including 31 Thoughts on Prophecy and Leaving the Shallows: igniting the faith that overcomes the world. Her tastes tend toward vintage and she's a Germanophile, having spent a year in Bremen and Nuremberg. Emily loves the scriptures and writes with fierce compassion and a deep desire to see people freed from the miry clay of this world and walking in the truth.